The Regime is dying, but a new one can’t be born By Elon Samson

There is no better expression more than Antonio Gramsci’s “the old is dying and the new one cannot be born” to express the current political atmosphere in Ethiopia. The regime in Ethiopia is dying: many of the symptoms to refer a dying regime are manifested; unfortunately many of the symptoms to refer a new revolution are not yet to come. There is hard to tell poverty in the country in which 95 % of the population is fighting just for survival. There is increasing injustice, human rights violation, corruption and name it. Above all there is lack of trust and absence of hope in the current regime. There is despair in the north, despair in the south, despair in the east, despair in the west. All these are manifestations of a dying regime.

As said manifestations of a new born regime are yet to come. The fertile land for revolution is abundant , but the farmer is absent . The farmer is a political or civic society leader who can mobilize all the available resources to till the fertile land. The regime recognizes that it can’t change the fertile land into a non or less fertile one. The only thing it can make sure is that no farmer can plough this land. That is the strategy the regime is following: to make sure that no farmer dares to till the land. What is happening on Andualem Arage or Eskinder Nega or what has happened on Bertukan Midekessa or other political figures is the result of the strategy of prohibiting a farmer from tilling the fertile land for revolution.

This is I think the area where everyone concerned needs to think. There is nothing coming out as a result of telling the people time and again about their 1001 problems. The people know each and every detail of their life because they are living with it. It may help to remind the people about their plights, but it is not enough to stop there. There needs to be a strategy which enables us to produce the farmer. We haven’t been successful in this regard so far because much of our struggle focuses on stating the existence of the fertile ground than encouraging the farmer to till it. We expect the fruit by simply reporting about the fertile land without putting the farmer on the land. We expect the fertile land to produce the fruit for itself. A fertile land may produce something on it without being tilled, but we can’t be sure that that produce is whether a chaff or a wheat. The reason why the old is dying , but the new one cannot be born is I think the absence of the land tiller despite the existence of the fertile land.